Category: Communication

Words and deeds that were considered by many to be anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist, sexist, and pompous to a fault marked [Evan] Mecham’s brief career as governor of Arizona. In stark contrast, others deemed Mecham to be straightforward, honest, and gallant for being able to boldly proclaim their socially conservative doctrine…To many conservatives, Mecham was a hero…

After the New Hampshire primary I wrote about a key difference between the victory speeches of Donald Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders on one hand, and Secretary Hillary Clinton on the other. In their speeches Trump and Sanders used the word “we” a lot, while Clinton relied on the word ‘I’. Trump and Sanders, like their…

Rhetorical scholars are among those least surprised by the success of Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Trump and Sanders are doing what teachers as far back as Aristotle said successful speakers do: Make the audience believe the speaker is one of them. Consider this passage from the Christian scholar Saint Augustine in the fourth century AD:…

Classes start at The George Washington University next week, which means another spring of ranting about rhetoric and conversations trying to make sense of the campaign season. And as always there will be Aristotle. Given current political events, should be an eventful semester. Below is the current working draft of the syllabus with most of the logistics redacted:…

America is a system based on the premise that no one person has the right answer to every issue, and that the best answers will only come from deliberation. Yet we discourage political discussion. We teach students the importance of volunteering at a soup kitchen or cleaning up a park, but never teach them to…

Donald Trump continues to do well in the polls because people agree with what he says. This sounds obvious, but a lot of the experts in the political and pundit classes keep wondering the same thing: “How can Trump be popular when he’s so obviously nuts?” Some blame reality television, hyper-partisanship, partisan media, and a…

Since the mid-1990s I have dropped in and out of the federal budget debate, the politics of the federal budget, and citizen engagement in the federal budget. The substance of that debate is largely the same today as it was when President Clinton was in office (one notable difference being that the government was running…

The recent shootings in Santa Barbara have, rightly, grabbed national headlines. The father of one of the victims is, appropriately, expressing rage and outrage at both the event and the set of laws that he sees allowing events like this. And as a result, no law will change. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza points out…

This semester’s course in contemporary political rhetoric in The School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University started in January with Aristotle’s Rhetoric, worked through Kenneth Burke, Richard Weaver, Ernest Bormann and others, then looked at contemporary analyses of rhetoric and war, the rhetoric of apology, and other case studies, and ends…

Some of the best advice on how to use 140 characters to promote a position is 18 characters long and 2,000 years old. I am a fan of Aristotle, and in particular his Rhetoric. (His Politics has some interesting things to say about contemporary American politics as well, but that’s a different rant.) A key…